So the other day, I remembered the posts I planned to write blog posts about the document detailing the Condesce’s story on Earth, on both sides of the Scratch, elaborating on the guardians’ lives along the way.
The short story is, those posts are cancelled.
The long story is, those posts aren’t exactly cancelled. I absolutely plan to discuss this material as I go through my Homestuck blog posts! My current tentative plan is to discuss each kid’s life across the scratch during the relevant reunion scenes in A6A6I5, where all kids except Jade learn their lives across the scratch. It’s kind of a long way from now, but keep in mind this is a tentative plan that could change any minute. A lot of my blog posts I’ve written on impulse, which as you know is how I ended up reviving my Homestuck post series in the first place.
Anyway, here goes:
- John, Jake, and Jade’s lives will be discussed at the start of John and Jake’s conversation, during the lilypad selection screen.
- Jane’s life across the scratch will be discussed at the start of her meeting with Nannasprite.
- The Lalondes’ lives will be discussed at the start of their first conversation, again during the lilypad selection screen.
^ These are going to be handled in the following form: basically “Before we begin going through this conversation, I’d like to discuss ___”. It’s similar to how when a character or concept is first introduced in the comic, I generally take a moment to discuss it before going on.
The Striders’ lives across the scratch are the exception here; since their reunion is so long and detailed, I’ll discuss their lives across the scratch as I go along. Part of why I’m doing this is because their lives aren’t elaborated on very much in the external material, rather only in the actual comic.
As I thought about these posts again, I realized I could expand this idea to discussing the trolls’ lives across the scratch. There’s a major oddity with them: technically speaking, we know a lot about the pre-scratch trolls’ (Meenah and company) lives across the scratch, but next to nothing about the post-scratch trolls’ (Karkat and company) lives across the scratch. Weirder yet, for the most part it’s far easier to compare Karkat and company to their own ancestors than it is to compare Meenah and company to their post-scratch selves (Karkat and company’s ancestors). The biggest exception to this is Feferi, whose pre-scratch life is explored through the general atmosphere of Beforus, just as Meenah’s life is explored through the Condesce’s character and the atmosphere of Alternia. Aradia is another exception in a way, since her ancestor was Lord English’s slave who made Alternia miserable, but she’s always been an oddball character among the trolls so maybe that comparison actually makes sense. Since it’s hard to discuss the trolls without Vriska coming to mind, I can’t stop myself from noting that Aranea trying to be more like Mindfang seems to be a deconstruction of these character comparison oddities, and how they make no logical sense.
I’ll discuss the trolls’ lives across the scratch, as well as the pre-scratch trolls in general, in more detail when I start Act 6 Intermission 3, one of the most controversial parts of the comic. Keep an eye out for new posts in the days leading up to 4/13!
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